Sheep To The Slaughter

We couldnt do a Retro-Edition without revisiting one of last year's hottest topics...We ended the 'Hitler Revisited' series by considering the skepticism around the Holocaust. Some interesting arguments have been put forward which cannot be dismissed off-hand...Check it out and draw your own conclusions!

THE HOLOCAUST

The Holocaust consists of three basic elements:

Approximately 6 million Jews were deliberately killed.

These killings were part of a state-sponsored program on the part of the Third Reich whose ultimate goal was the total eradication of the Jewish people.

The bulk of these murders took place in special camps where the principal mechanism of execution was the homocidal gas chamber that utilized Zyclon B, a commercial pesticide whose active ingredient was hydrogen cyanide.

Holocaust Revisionism does not treat the above premises as self-evident facts that do not require proof. The objective of Holocaust Revisionism is not to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust a priori, but rather to subject the ‘Holocaust Thesis’ to the same scrutiny as any other Historical Thesis.

There is nothing inherently exceptional in the Holocaust Thesis that should exempt it from the same degree of critical analysis we subject all ideas and Thesis in our quest to plot a course for Humanity based on fact.

It would seem that the three principal reasons for the widespread but erroneous belief in the legend of millions of Jews killed by the Germans during World War II: U.S. and British troops found horrible piles of corpses in the West German camps they captured in 1945 (e.g. Dachau and Belsen); there are no longer large communities of Jews in Poland; and historians generally support the legend.

During both world wars, Germany was forced to fight typhus, carried by lice in the constant traffic with the East. That is why all accounts of entry into the German concentration camps speak of shaving of hair and showering and other delousing procedures, such as treatment of quarters with the pesticide Zyklon. That was also the main reason for a high death rate in the camps, and for the crematoria that existed in all.

When Germany collapsed in chaos, then of course all such defenses ceased, and typhus and other diseases became rampant in the camps, which quartered mainly political prisoners, ordinary criminals, homosexuals, conscientious objectors and Jews conscripted for labor. Hence the horrible scenes, which however had nothing to do with “extermination” or any deliberate policy. Moreover, the West German camps involved were not the alleged “extermination camps,” which were all in Poland (e.g. Auschwitz and Treblinka) and which were all evacuated or shut down before capture by the Soviets, who found no such scenes.

The “Final Solution” spoken of in the German documents was a program of evacuation, resettlement and deportation of Jews with the ultimate objective of expulsion from Europe. During the war Jews of various nationalities were being moved east, as one stage in this Final Solution. The legend claims that the motion was mainly for extermination purposes.

The great majority of the millions allegedly exterminated were East European — not German or West European — Jews. For that reason study of the problem via population statistics has been difficult to impossible, but it is a fact that there are no longer large communities of Jews in Poland.

However, the Germans were only one of several parties involved in moving Jews around. The Soviets deported virtually all of the Jews of eastern Poland to their interior in 1940. After the war, with Polish and other Jews pouring out of the East into occupied West Germany, the Zionists moved large numbers to Palestine, and the United States and other countries absorbed many Jews, in most cases under conditions making impossible a numerical accounting. Moreover, the Polish borders were changed drastically at the end of the war; the country was literally moved west.

Near unanimity among the academics is especially suspect when there exists great political pressures; in some countries, Holocaust Revisionists like David Irving have been prosecuted.

It is easy to show that the extermination legend merits skepticism. Even the casual reader of the Holocaust literature knows that during the war virtually nobody acted as though it were happening. Thus it is common to berate the Vatican, the Red Cross and the Allies (especially the intelligence agencies) of their ignorance and inaction, and to explain that the Jews generally did not resist deportation because they did not know what was in store for them.

If you add all this up you have the strange claim that for almost three years German trains, operating on a continental scale in densely civilized regions of Europe, were regularly and systematically moving millions of Jews to their deaths, and nobody noticed except for a few of our Jewish leaders who were making public “extermination” claims.

What we are offered as ‘evidence’ for the Holocaust was gathered after the war, as part of the Nuremberg Trials. The evidence is almost all oral testimony and “confessions.” Without the evidence of these trials there would be no significant evidence of “extermination.”

The main claim of the Holocaust legend is made doubtful by the fact that Professional Engineers have confirmed that there were no technical means available for the NAZIs to conduct the alleged mass Chamber gassing of Jews with the pesticide Zyklon B, one of the main Holocaust Crimes.

Our documentary of the week which can be viewed off the Home Page outlines the case against the Holocaust. Another documentary by a young Jewish American who visited Auschwitz and other concentration Camps himself, and left with the conclusion that the Holocaust is a Historical construction.

The David Irving videos and Dennis Wise documentary ‘Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told’ on our YouTube Channel’s ‘History & Politics’ Playlist also lend their voices of dissent to the Holocaust Thesis as it presently stands.

Ultimately, the Revisionist position is not to deny that Germans killed Jews during World War 2, but rather that the War should be acknowledged for what it really was, the slaughter of Innocents which included Jews and other Nationalities who all deserve equal recognition of their suffering during the War.

Holocaust Revisionism has frequently been described as Holocaust denial, but I do not agree with this view because ultimately it cloaks the Holocaust Thesis in a shield of invulnerability that prevents Humanity from fully re-examining and understanding the true causes and effects of World War 2.

Whether the Holocaust as it is presently understood was a reality or not also has implications of the legitimacy of the Nuremberg Trials...Was the NAZI leadership put on Trial for a Crime that didnt exist?

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for your Job, Blog or that business you've got going...Peep it.

Sheep To The Slaughter

We couldnt do a Retro-Edition without revisiting one of last year's hottest topics...We ended the 'Hitler Revisited' series by considering the skepticism around the Holocaust. Some interesting arguments have been put forward which cannot be dismissed off-hand...Check it out and draw your own conclusions!
THE HOLOCAUST

The Holocaust consists of three basic elements:

Approximately 6 million Jews were deliberately killed.

These killings were part of a state-sponsored program on the part of the Third Reich whose ultimate goal was the total eradication of the Jewish people.

The bulk of these murders took place in special camps where the principal mechanism of execution was the homocidal gas chamber that utilized Zyclon B, a commercial pesticide whose active ingredient was hydrogen cyanide.

Holocaust Revisionism does not treat the above premises as self-evident facts that do not require proof. The objective of Holocaust Revisionism is not to deny the occurrence of the Holocaust a priori, but rather to subject the ‘Holocaust Thesis’ to the same scrutiny as any other Historical Thesis.

There is nothing inherently exceptional in the Holocaust Thesis that should exempt it from the same degree of critical analysis we subject all ideas and Thesis in our quest to plot a course for Humanity based on fact.

It would seem that the three principal reasons for the widespread but erroneous belief in the legend of millions of Jews killed by the Germans during World War II: U.S. and British troops found horrible piles of corpses in the West German camps they captured in 1945 (e.g. Dachau and Belsen); there are no longer large communities of Jews in Poland; and historians generally support the legend.

During both world wars, Germany was forced to fight typhus, carried by lice in the constant traffic with the East. That is why all accounts of entry into the German concentration camps speak of shaving of hair and showering and other delousing procedures, such as treatment of quarters with the pesticide Zyklon. That was also the main reason for a high death rate in the camps, and for the crematoria that existed in all.

When Germany collapsed in chaos, then of course all such defenses ceased, and typhus and other diseases became rampant in the camps, which quartered mainly political prisoners, ordinary criminals, homosexuals, conscientious objectors and Jews conscripted for labor. Hence the horrible scenes, which however had nothing to do with “extermination” or any deliberate policy. Moreover, the West German camps involved were not the alleged “extermination camps,” which were all in Poland (e.g. Auschwitz and Treblinka) and which were all evacuated or shut down before capture by the Soviets, who found no such scenes.

The “Final Solution” spoken of in the German documents was a program of evacuation, resettlement and deportation of Jews with the ultimate objective of expulsion from Europe. During the war Jews of various nationalities were being moved east, as one stage in this Final Solution. The legend claims that the motion was mainly for extermination purposes.

The great majority of the millions allegedly exterminated were East European — not German or West European — Jews. For that reason study of the problem via population statistics has been difficult to impossible, but it is a fact that there are no longer large communities of Jews in Poland.

However, the Germans were only one of several parties involved in moving Jews around. The Soviets deported virtually all of the Jews of eastern Poland to their interior in 1940. After the war, with Polish and other Jews pouring out of the East into occupied West Germany, the Zionists moved large numbers to Palestine, and the United States and other countries absorbed many Jews, in most cases under conditions making impossible a numerical accounting. Moreover, the Polish borders were changed drastically at the end of the war; the country was literally moved west.

Near unanimity among the academics is especially suspect when there exists great political pressures; in some countries, Holocaust Revisionists like David Irving have been prosecuted.

It is easy to show that the extermination legend merits skepticism. Even the casual reader of the Holocaust literature knows that during the war virtually nobody acted as though it were happening. Thus it is common to berate the Vatican, the Red Cross and the Allies (especially the intelligence agencies) of their ignorance and inaction, and to explain that the Jews generally did not resist deportation because they did not know what was in store for them.

If you add all this up you have the strange claim that for almost three years German trains, operating on a continental scale in densely civilized regions of Europe, were regularly and systematically moving millions of Jews to their deaths, and nobody noticed except for a few of our Jewish leaders who were making public “extermination” claims.

What we are offered as ‘evidence’ for the Holocaust was gathered after the war, as part of the Nuremberg Trials. The evidence is almost all oral testimony and “confessions.” Without the evidence of these trials there would be no significant evidence of “extermination.”

The main claim of the Holocaust legend is made doubtful by the fact that Professional Engineers have confirmed that there were no technical means available for the NAZIs to conduct the alleged mass Chamber gassing of Jews with the pesticide Zyklon B, one of the main Holocaust Crimes.

Our documentary of the week which can be viewed off the Home Page outlines the case against the Holocaust. Another documentary by a young Jewish American who visited Auschwitz and other concentration Camps himself, and left with the conclusion that the Holocaust is a Historical construction.

The David Irving videos and Dennis Wise documentary ‘Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told’ on our YouTube Channel’s ‘History & Politics’ Playlist also lend their voices of dissent to the Holocaust Thesis as it presently stands.

Ultimately, the Revisionist position is not to deny that Germans killed Jews during World War 2, but rather that the War should be acknowledged for what it really was, the slaughter of Innocents which included Jews and other Nationalities who all deserve equal recognition of their suffering during the War.

Holocaust Revisionism has frequently been described as Holocaust denial, but I do not agree with this view because ultimately it cloaks the Holocaust Thesis in a shield of invulnerability that prevents Humanity from fully re-examining and understanding the true causes and effects of World War 2.

Whether the Holocaust as it is presently understood was a reality or not also has implications of the legitimacy of the Nuremberg Trials...Was the NAZI leadership put on Trial for a Crime that didnt exist?
Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.
We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for your Job, Blog or that business you've got going...Peep it.
Dont forget to download our Android App Free on Googleplay for easier Navigation on your Mobile Phone.
For the big picture on the Holocaust, we recommend you take some time to read the entire 'Hitler Revisited' series...We've included a link to Part 1 below.

Born Again...

March 9th marked yet another year since the passing of the Notorious B.I.G...In remembrance, we reproduce our 20 Year Anniversary tribute below...Enjoy.

THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G: 20 YEARS ON

‘Big’ (As he was affectionately known) succumbed to wounds from a fatal shooting on March 9, 1997 as he left the Soul Train Awards hosted in LA. Despite warnings that he shouldn’t go back to Cali following Pac’s death, being the independent man he was, he chose to go.Ironically, his return to Cali was captured on the song ‘Going back to Cali’ off his Posthumous smash album ‘Life After Death’. While in LA, Big conducted his last radio interview with Sway in which he candidly expressed his views on the East/West Feud.

My honest interpretation is that Big was just a young Man trying to make a living who didn’t expect the hurricane that his talent (his only means to survive) brought into his life. He was primarily concerned about his Wife, Mother and Children like any of us would be, and the ‘Beef’ was an unwelcome distraction.

I think ‘Big’ captured his thoughts on this quite clearly on ‘What’s Beef?’ off ‘Life After Death’…..In his view, it was all hype, smoke and mirrors taking away focus from his music, and the business of music….I don’t think anyone can fault him for thinking and acting like a grown Man.

As for the accusations of ‘betrayal’ by Tupac, again that’s Pac’s view of the situation, and in my view ‘Pac was slightly jealous of Big and the independence his success brought him. ‘Pac took his ‘big brother’ syndrome a bit too far in my view, and turned the whole situation into a dramatic Pro-Wrestling type of feud possibly to fuel his own record sales. (The Tupac fans are probably going to send me all sorts of death threats just for saying that!!)

I still prefer ‘Pac’s music to Big’s overall, but I think ‘Pac was at fault to a degree for fanning the flames and things getting blown out of proportion. Big in my view was correct in asking whether Rap had become Pro-Wrestling on ‘Whats Beef?

This trend has escalated now with the Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma ‘Beef’ which has seen Foxy Brown and Queen Latifah enter the fray being the most recent example. Is this real street ‘Beef’ or Pro-Wrestling for Entertainment?

Better Dayz

I digress, Big will always be one of Hip Hop’s greatest, and 20 years on his murder remains unsolved. We’ve included links to the LA Times latest update on the Investigation which ties into the LA Police Corruption affair known as the ‘Rampart Scandal’……The Game was spitting truth on ‘Start from Scratch’ when he said ”I would have told ‘Pac not to stomp out Orlando/Would have told Puff & Big about the Rampart Scandal”.

We also recommend the Nick Broomfield Documentary ‘Biggie & Tupac’ which is on our YouTube Channel in the ‘Music, Sports & Culture’ Playlist for more detailed information on the investigation into Big’s death…I think its pretty clear from that documentary who’s responsible but as always, we leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.

The last Radio Interview Big did with Sway in LA is also on our YouTube Channel under the same Playlist.

As our Big Tribute, we’ve also included links to his monster break out single ‘Juicy’, XXL’s ‘The Making Of Ready To Die (My personal fav Big album) and his interview with ‘Vibe’ Magazine at the height of East/West Feud……We’ll always love Big Poppa (RIP).

You can also read our Pac tribute on link provided below.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

Born Again...

March 9th marked yet another year since the passing of the Notorious B.I.G...In remembrance, we reproduce our 20 Year Anniversary tribute below...Enjoy.

THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G: 20 YEARS ON

‘Big’ (As he was affectionately known) succumbed to wounds from a fatal shooting on March 9, 1997 as he left the Soul Train Awards hosted in LA. Despite warnings that he shouldn’t go back to Cali following Pac’s death, being the independent man he was, he chose to go.Ironically, his return to Cali was captured on the song ‘Going back to Cali’ off his Posthumous smash album ‘Life After Death’. While in LA, Big conducted his last radio interview with Sway in which he candidly expressed his views on the East/West Feud.
My honest interpretation is that Big was just a young Man trying to make a living who didn’t expect the hurricane that his talent (his only means to survive) brought into his life. He was primarily concerned about his Wife, Mother and Children like any of us would be, and the ‘Beef’ was an unwelcome distraction.
I think ‘Big’ captured his thoughts on this quite clearly on ‘What’s Beef?’ off ‘Life After Death’…..In his view, it was all hype, smoke and mirrors taking away focus from his music, and the business of music….I don’t think anyone can fault him for thinking and acting like a grown Man.
As for the accusations of ‘betrayal’ by Tupac, again that’s Pac’s view of the situation, and in my view ‘Pac was slightly jealous of Big and the independence his success brought him. ‘Pac took his ‘big brother’ syndrome a bit too far in my view, and turned the whole situation into a dramatic Pro-Wrestling type of feud possibly to fuel his own record sales. (The Tupac fans are probably going to send me all sorts of death threats just for saying that!!)
I still prefer ‘Pac’s music to Big’s overall, but I think ‘Pac was at fault to a degree for fanning the flames and things getting blown out of proportion. Big in my view was correct in asking whether Rap had become Pro-Wrestling on ‘Whats Beef?
This trend has escalated now with the Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma ‘Beef’ which has seen Foxy Brown and Queen Latifah enter the fray being the most recent example. Is this real street ‘Beef’ or Pro-Wrestling for Entertainment?

Better Dayz

I digress, Big will always be one of Hip Hop’s greatest, and 20 years on his murder remains unsolved. We’ve included links to the LA Times latest update on the Investigation which ties into the LA Police Corruption affair known as the ‘Rampart Scandal’……The Game was spitting truth on ‘Start from Scratch’ when he said ”I would have told ‘Pac not to stomp out Orlando/Would have told Puff & Big about the Rampart Scandal”.
We also recommend the Nick Broomfield Documentary ‘Biggie & Tupac’ which is on our YouTube Channel in the ‘Music, Sports & Culture’ Playlist for more detailed information on the investigation into Big’s death…I think its pretty clear from that documentary who’s responsible but as always, we leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions.
The last Radio Interview Big did with Sway in LA is also on our YouTube Channel under the same Playlist.
As our Big Tribute, we’ve also included links to his monster break out single ‘Juicy’, XXL’s ‘The Making Of Ready To Die (My personal fav Big album) and his interview with ‘Vibe’ Magazine at the height of East/West Feud……We’ll always love Big Poppa (RIP).

You can also read our Pac tribute on link provided below.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.
We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.
Dont forget to download our Android App Free on Googleplay for easier Navigation on your Mobile Phone.
One!

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking's recent death is the world's loss but the Universes' gain...A brilliant mind whose contribution to Humanity will be felt for generations. I found a detailed obituary by fellow British Scientist Roger Penrose, and share it below...Enjoy.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF STEPHEN HAWKING'S TIME

The image of Stephen Hawking – who has died aged 76 – in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination, as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter. As with the Delphic oracle of ancient Greece, physical impairment seemed compensated by almost supernatural gifts, which allowed his mind to roam the universe freely, upon occasion enigmatically revealing some of its secrets hidden from ordinary mortal view.

Of course, such a romanticised image can represent but a partial truth. Those who knew Hawking would clearly appreciate the dominating presence of a real human being, with an enormous zest for life, great humour, and tremendous determination, yet with normal human weaknesses, as well as his more obvious strengths. It seems clear that he took great delight in his commonly perceived role as “the No 1 celebrity scientist”; huge audiences would attend his public lectures, perhaps not always just for scientific edification.

The scientific community might well form a more sober assessment. He was extremely highly regarded, in view of his many greatly impressive, sometimes revolutionary, contributions to the understanding of the physics and the geometry of the universe.

Hawking had been diagnosed shortly after his 21st birthday as suffering from an unspecified incurable disease, which was then identified as the fatal degenerative motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Soon afterwards, rather than succumbing to depression, as others might have done, he began to set his sights on some of the most fundamental questions concerning the physical nature of the universe. In due course, he would achieve extraordinary successes against the severest physical disabilities. Defying established medical opinion, he managed to live another 55 years.

His background was academic, though not directly in mathematics or physics. His father, Frank, was an expert in tropical diseases and his mother, Isobel (nee Walker), was a free-thinking radical who had a great influence on him. He was born in Oxford and moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, at eight. Educated at St Albans school, he won a scholarship to study physics at University College, Oxford. He was recognised as unusually capable by his tutors, but did not take his work altogether seriously. Although he obtained a first-class degree in 1962, it was not a particularly outstanding one.

He decided to continue his career in physics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, proposing to study under the distinguished cosmologist Fred Hoyle. He was disappointed to find that Hoyle was unable to take him, the person available in that area being Dennis Sciama, unknown to Hawking at the time. In fact, this proved fortuitous, for Sciama was becoming an outstandingly stimulating figure in British cosmology, and would supervise several students who were to make impressive names for themselves in later years (including the future astronomer royal Lord Rees of Ludlow).

Sciama seemed to know everything that was going on in physics at the time, especially in cosmology, and he conveyed an infectious excitement to all who encountered him. He was also very effective in bringing together people who might have things of significance to communicate with one another.

When Hawking was in his second year of research at Cambridge, I (at Birkbeck College in London) had established a certain mathematical theorem of relevance. This showed, on the basis of a few plausible assumptions (by the use of global/topological techniques largely unfamiliar to physicists at the time) that a collapsing over-massive star would result in a singularity in space-time – a place where it would be expected that densities and space-time curvatures would become infinite – giving us the picture of what we now refer to as a “black hole”. Such a space-time singularity would lie deep within a “horizon”, through which no signal or material body can escape. (This picture had been put forward by J Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder in 1939, but only in the special circumstance where exact spherical symmetry was assumed. The purpose of this new theorem was to obviate such unrealistic symmetry assumptions.) At this central singularity, Einstein’s classical theory of general relativity would have reached its limits.

Meanwhile, Hawking had also been thinking about this kind of problem with George Ellis, who was working on a PhD at St John’s College, Cambridge. The two men had been working on a more limited type of “singularity theorem” that required an unreasonably restrictive assumption. Sciama made a point of bringing Hawking and me together, and it did not take Hawking long to find a way to use my theorem in an unexpected way, so that it could be applied (in a time-reversed form) in a cosmological setting, to show that the space-time singularity referred to as the “big bang” was also a feature not just of the standard highly symmetrical cosmological models, but also of any qualitatively similar but asymmetrical model.

Some of the assumptions in my original theorem seem less natural in the cosmological setting than they do for collapse to a black hole. In order to generalise the mathematical result so as to remove such assumptions, Hawking embarked on a study of new mathematical techniques that appeared relevant to the problem.

A powerful body of mathematical work known as Morse theory had been part of the machinery of mathematicians active in the global (topological) study of Riemannian spaces. However, the spaces that are used in Einstein’s theory are really pseudo-Riemannian and the relevant Morse theory differs in subtle but important ways. Hawking developed the necessary theory for himself (aided, in certain respects, by Charles Misner, Robert Geroch and Brandon Carter) and was able to use it to produce new theorems of a more powerful nature, in which the assumptions of my theorem could be considerably weakened, showing that a big-bang-type singularity was a necessary implication of Einstein’s general relativity in broad circumstances.

A few years later (in a paper published by the Royal Society in 1970, by which time Hawking had become a fellow “for distinction in science” of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge), he and I joined forces to publish an even more powerful theorem which subsumed almost all the work in this area that had gone before.

In 1967, Werner Israel published a remarkable paper that had the implication that non-rotating black holes, when they had finally settled down to become stationary, would necessarily become completely spherically symmetrical. Subsequent results by Carter, David Robinson and others generalised this to include rotating black holes, the implication being that the final space-time geometry must necessarily accord with an explicit family of solutions of Einstein’s equations found by Roy Kerr in 1963. A key ingredient to the full argument was that if there is any rotation present, then there must be complete axial symmetry. This ingredient was basically supplied by Hawking in 1972.

The very remarkable conclusion of all this is that the black holes that we expect to find in nature have to conform to this Kerr geometry. As the great theoretical astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrasekhar subsequently commented, black holes are the most perfect macroscopic objects in the universe, being constructed just out of space and time; moreover, they are the simplest as well, since they can be exactly described by an explicitly known geometry (that of Kerr).

Following his work in this area, Hawking established a number of important results about black holes, such as an argument for its event horizon (its bounding surface) having to have the topology of a sphere. In collaboration with Carter and James Bardeen, in work published in 1973, he established some remarkable analogies between the behaviour of black holes and the basic laws of thermodynamics, where the horizon’s surface area and its surface gravity were shown to be analogous, respectively, to the thermodynamic quantities of entropy and temperature. It would be fair to say that in his highly active period leading up to this work, Hawking’s research in classical general relativity was the best anywhere in the world at that time.

Hawking, Bardeen and Carter took their “thermodynamic” behaviour of black holes to be little more than just an analogy, with no literal physical content. A year or so earlier, Jacob Bekenstein had shown that the demands of physical consistency imply – in the context of quantum mechanics – that a black hole must indeed have an actual physical entropy (“entropy” being a physicist’s measure of “disorder”) that is proportional to its horizon’s surface area, but he was unable to establish the proportionality factor precisely. Yet it had seemed, on the other hand, that the physical temperature of a black hole must be exactly zero, inconsistently with this analogy, since no form of energy could escape from it, which is why Hawking and his colleagues were not prepared to take their analogy completely seriously.

Hawking had then turned his attention to quantum effects in relation to black holes, and he embarked on a calculation to determine whether tiny rotating black holes that might perhaps be created in the big bang would radiate away their rotational energy. He was startled to find that irrespective of any rotation they would radiate away their energy – which, by Einstein’s E=mc2, means their mass. Accordingly, any black hole actually has a non-zero temperature, agreeing precisely with the Bardeen-Carter-Hawking analogy. Moreover, Hawking was able to supply the precise value “one quarter” for the entropy proportionality constant that Bekenstein had been unable to determine.

This radiation coming from black holes that Hawking predicted is now, very appropriately, referred to as Hawking radiation. For any black hole that is expected to arise in normal astrophysical processes, however, the Hawking radiation would be exceedingly tiny, and certainly unobservable directly by any techniques known today. But he argued that very tiny black holes could have been produced in the big bang itself, and the Hawking radiation from such holes would build up into a final explosion that might be observed. There appears to be no evidence for such explosions, showing that the big bang was not so accommodating as Hawking wished, and this was a great disappointment to him.

These achievements were certainly important on the theoretical side. They established the theory of black-hole thermodynamics: by combining the procedures of quantum (field) theory with those of general relativity, Hawking established that it is necessary also to bring in a third subject, thermodynamics. They are generally regarded as Hawking’s greatest contributions. That they have deep implications for future theories of fundamental physics is undeniable, but the detailed nature of these implications is still a matter of much heated debate.

Hawking himself was able to conclude from all this (though not with universal acceptance by particle physicists) that those fundamental constituents of ordinary matter – the protons – must ultimately disintegrate, although with a decay rate that is beyond present-day techniques for observing it. He also provided reasons for suspecting that the very rules of quantum mechanics might need modification, a viewpoint that he seemed originally to favour. But later (unfortunately, in my own opinion) he came to a different view, and at the Dublin international conference on gravity in July 2004, he publicly announced a change of mind (thereby conceding a bet with the Caltech physicist John Preskill) concerning his originally predicted “information loss” inside black holes.

Following his black-hole work, Hawking turned his attentions to the problem of quantum gravity, developing ingenious ideas for resolving some of the basic issues. Quantum gravity, which involves correctly imposing the quantum procedures of particle physics on to the very structure of space-time, is generally regarded as the most fundamental unsolved foundational issue in physics. One of its stated aims is to find a physical theory that is powerful enough to deal with the space-time singularities of classical general relativity in black holes and the big bang.

Hawking’s work, up to this point, although it had involved the procedures of quantum mechanics in the curved space-time setting of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, did not provide a quantum gravity theory. That would require the “quantisation” procedures to be applied to Einstein’s curved space-time itself, not just to physical fields within curved space-time.

With James Hartle, Hawking developed a quantum procedure for handling the big-bang singularity. This is referred to as the “no-boundary” idea, whereby the singularity is replaced by a smooth “cap”, this being likened to what happens at the north pole of the Earth, where the concept of longitude loses meaning (becomes singular) while the north pole itself has a perfectly good geometry.

To make sense of this idea, Hawking needed to invoke his notion of “imaginary time” (or “Euclideanisation”), which has the effect of converting the “pseudo-Riemannian” geometry of Einstein’s space-time into a more standard Riemannian one. Despite the ingenuity of many of these ideas, grave difficulties remain (one of these being how similar procedures could be applied to the singularities inside black holes, which is fundamentally problematic).

Big Bang Simulation

There are many other approaches to quantum gravity being pursued worldwide, and Hawking’s procedures, though greatly respected and still investigated, are not the most popularly followed, although all others have their share of fundamental difficulties also.

To the end of his life, Hawking continued with his research into the quantum-gravity problem, and the related issues of cosmology. But concurrently with his strictly research interests, he became increasingly involved with the popularisation of science, and of his own ideas in particular. This began with the writing of his astoundingly successful book A Brief History of Time (1988), which was translated into some 40 languages and sold over 25m copies worldwide.

Undoubtedly, the brilliant title was a contributing factor to the book’s phenomenal success. Also, the subject matter is something that grips the public imagination. And there is a directness and clarity of style, which Hawking must have developed as a matter of necessity when trying to cope with the limitations imposed by his physical disabilities. Before needing to rely on his computerised speech, he could talk only with great difficulty and expenditure of effort, so he had to do what he could with short sentences that were directly to the point. In addition, it is hard to deny that his physical condition must itself have caught the public’s imagination.

Although the dissemination of science among a broader public was certainly one of Hawking’s aims in writing his book, he also had the serious purpose of making money. His financial needs were considerable, as his entourage of family, nurses, healthcare helpers and increasingly expensive equipment demanded. Some, but not all, of this was covered by grants.

To invite Hawking to a conference always involved the organisers in serious calculations. The travel and accommodation expenses would be enormous, not least because of the sheer number of people who would need to accompany him. But a popular lecture by him would always be a sell-out, and special arrangements would be needed to find a lecture hall that was big enough. An additional factor would be the ensuring that all entrances, stairways, lifts, and so on would be adequate for disabled people in general, and for his wheelchair in particular.

He clearly enjoyed his fame, taking many opportunities to travel and to have unusual experiences (such as going down a mine shaft, visiting the south pole and undergoing the zero-gravity of free fall), and to meet other distinguished people.

The presentational polish of his public lectures increased with the years. Originally, the visual material would be line drawings on transparencies, presented by a student. But in later years impressive computer-generated visuals were used. He controlled the verbal material, sentence by sentence, as it would be delivered by his computer-generated American-accented voice. High-quality pictures and computer-generated graphics also featured in his later popular books The Illustrated Brief History of Time (1996) and The Universe in a Nutshell (2001). With his daughter Lucy he wrote the expository children’s science book George’s Secret Key to the Universe (2007), and he served as an editor, co-author and commentator for many other works of popular science.

He received many high accolades and honours. In particular, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the remarkably early age of 32 and received its highest honour, the Copley medal, in 2006. In 1979, he became the 17th holder of the Lucasian chair of natural philosophy in Cambridge, some 310 years after Sir Isaac Newton became its second holder. He became a Companion of Honour in 1989. He made a guest appearance on the television programme Star Trek: The Next Generation, appeared in cartoon form on The Simpsons and was portrayed in the movie The Theory of Everything (2014).

It is clear that he owed a great deal to his first wife, Jane Wilde, whom he married in 1965, and with whom he had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy. Jane was exceptionally supportive of him in many ways. One of the most important of these may well have been in allowing him to do things for himself to an unusual extent.

He was an extraordinarily determined person. He would insist that he should do things for himself. This, in turn, perhaps kept his muscles active in a way that delayed their atrophy, thereby slowing the progress of the disease. Nevertheless, his condition continued to deteriorate, until he had almost no movement left, and his speech could barely be made out at all except by a very few who knew him well.

He contracted pneumonia while in Switzerland in 1985, and a tracheotomy was necessary to save his life. Strangely, after this brush with death, the progress of his degenerative disease seemed to slow to a virtual halt. His tracheotomy prevented any form of speech, however, so that acquiring a computerised speech synthesiser came as a necessity at that time.

In the aftermath of his encounter with pneumonia, the Hawkings’ home was almost taken over by nurses and medical attendants, and he and Jane drifted apart. They were divorced in 1995. In the same year, Hawking married Elaine Mason, who had been one of his nurses. Her support took a different form from Jane’s. In his far weaker physical state, the love, care and attention that she provided sustained him in all his activities. Yet this relationship also came to an end, and he and Elaine were divorced in 2007.

Despite his terrible physical circumstance, he almost always remained positive about life. He enjoyed his work, the company of other scientists, the arts, the fruits of his fame, his travels. He took great pleasure in children, sometimes entertaining them by swivelling around in his motorised wheelchair. Social issues concerned him. He promoted scientific understanding. He could be generous and was very often witty. On occasion he could display something of the arrogance that is not uncommon among physicists working at the cutting edge, and he had an autocratic streak. Yet he could also show a true humility that is the mark of greatness.

Hawking had many students, some of whom later made significant names for themselves. Yet being a student of his was not easy. He had been known to run his wheelchair over the foot of a student who caused him irritation. His pronouncements carried great authority, but his physical difficulties often caused them to be enigmatic in their brevity. An able colleague might be able to disentangle the intent behind them, but it would be a different matter for an inexperienced student.

To such a student, a meeting with Hawking could be a daunting experience. Hawking might ask the student to pursue some obscure route, the reason for which could seem deeply mysterious. Clarification was not available, and the student would be presented with what seemed indeed to be like the revelation of an oracle – something whose truth was not to be questioned, but which if correctly interpreted and developed would surely lead onwards to a profound truth. Perhaps we are all left with this impression now.

Hawking is survived by his children.

R.I.P. to a true underdog who did not allow personal obstacles to dim his prospects and participation in Life...We're better off for it.

END

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

You can also download Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History Of Time' in PDF Format from the link provided in the Timbuktu Portal. The featured Documentary of the week is hosted by Stephen Hawking taking us for a ride through the Cosmos as he brings us in on the 'Story Of Everything'.

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking's recent death is the world's loss but the Universes' gain...A brilliant mind whose contribution to Humanity will be felt for generations. I found a detailed obituary by fellow British Scientist Roger Penrose, and share it below...Enjoy.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF STEPHEN HAWKING'S TIME

The image of Stephen Hawking – who has died aged 76 – in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination, as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter. As with the Delphic oracle of ancient Greece, physical impairment seemed compensated by almost supernatural gifts, which allowed his mind to roam the universe freely, upon occasion enigmatically revealing some of its secrets hidden from ordinary mortal view.

Of course, such a romanticised image can represent but a partial truth. Those who knew Hawking would clearly appreciate the dominating presence of a real human being, with an enormous zest for life, great humour, and tremendous determination, yet with normal human weaknesses, as well as his more obvious strengths. It seems clear that he took great delight in his commonly perceived role as “the No 1 celebrity scientist”; huge audiences would attend his public lectures, perhaps not always just for scientific edification.

The scientific community might well form a more sober assessment. He was extremely highly regarded, in view of his many greatly impressive, sometimes revolutionary, contributions to the understanding of the physics and the geometry of the universe.

Hawking had been diagnosed shortly after his 21st birthday as suffering from an unspecified incurable disease, which was then identified as the fatal degenerative motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Soon afterwards, rather than succumbing to depression, as others might have done, he began to set his sights on some of the most fundamental questions concerning the physical nature of the universe. In due course, he would achieve extraordinary successes against the severest physical disabilities. Defying established medical opinion, he managed to live another 55 years.

His background was academic, though not directly in mathematics or physics. His father, Frank, was an expert in tropical diseases and his mother, Isobel (nee Walker), was a free-thinking radical who had a great influence on him. He was born in Oxford and moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, at eight. Educated at St Albans school, he won a scholarship to study physics at University College, Oxford. He was recognised as unusually capable by his tutors, but did not take his work altogether seriously. Although he obtained a first-class degree in 1962, it was not a particularly outstanding one.

He decided to continue his career in physics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, proposing to study under the distinguished cosmologist Fred Hoyle. He was disappointed to find that Hoyle was unable to take him, the person available in that area being Dennis Sciama, unknown to Hawking at the time. In fact, this proved fortuitous, for Sciama was becoming an outstandingly stimulating figure in British cosmology, and would supervise several students who were to make impressive names for themselves in later years (including the future astronomer royal Lord Rees of Ludlow).

Sciama seemed to know everything that was going on in physics at the time, especially in cosmology, and he conveyed an infectious excitement to all who encountered him. He was also very effective in bringing together people who might have things of significance to communicate with one another.

When Hawking was in his second year of research at Cambridge, I (at Birkbeck College in London) had established a certain mathematical theorem of relevance. This showed, on the basis of a few plausible assumptions (by the use of global/topological techniques largely unfamiliar to physicists at the time) that a collapsing over-massive star would result in a singularity in space-time – a place where it would be expected that densities and space-time curvatures would become infinite – giving us the picture of what we now refer to as a “black hole”. Such a space-time singularity would lie deep within a “horizon”, through which no signal or material body can escape. (This picture had been put forward by J Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder in 1939, but only in the special circumstance where exact spherical symmetry was assumed. The purpose of this new theorem was to obviate such unrealistic symmetry assumptions.) At this central singularity, Einstein’s classical theory of general relativity would have reached its limits.

Meanwhile, Hawking had also been thinking about this kind of problem with George Ellis, who was working on a PhD at St John’s College, Cambridge. The two men had been working on a more limited type of “singularity theorem” that required an unreasonably restrictive assumption. Sciama made a point of bringing Hawking and me together, and it did not take Hawking long to find a way to use my theorem in an unexpected way, so that it could be applied (in a time-reversed form) in a cosmological setting, to show that the space-time singularity referred to as the “big bang” was also a feature not just of the standard highly symmetrical cosmological models, but also of any qualitatively similar but asymmetrical model.

Some of the assumptions in my original theorem seem less natural in the cosmological setting than they do for collapse to a black hole. In order to generalise the mathematical result so as to remove such assumptions, Hawking embarked on a study of new mathematical techniques that appeared relevant to the problem.

A powerful body of mathematical work known as Morse theory had been part of the machinery of mathematicians active in the global (topological) study of Riemannian spaces. However, the spaces that are used in Einstein’s theory are really pseudo-Riemannian and the relevant Morse theory differs in subtle but important ways. Hawking developed the necessary theory for himself (aided, in certain respects, by Charles Misner, Robert Geroch and Brandon Carter) and was able to use it to produce new theorems of a more powerful nature, in which the assumptions of my theorem could be considerably weakened, showing that a big-bang-type singularity was a necessary implication of Einstein’s general relativity in broad circumstances.

A few years later (in a paper published by the Royal Society in 1970, by which time Hawking had become a fellow “for distinction in science” of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge), he and I joined forces to publish an even more powerful theorem which subsumed almost all the work in this area that had gone before.

In 1967, Werner Israel published a remarkable paper that had the implication that non-rotating black holes, when they had finally settled down to become stationary, would necessarily become completely spherically symmetrical. Subsequent results by Carter, David Robinson and others generalised this to include rotating black holes, the implication being that the final space-time geometry must necessarily accord with an explicit family of solutions of Einstein’s equations found by Roy Kerr in 1963. A key ingredient to the full argument was that if there is any rotation present, then there must be complete axial symmetry. This ingredient was basically supplied by Hawking in 1972.

The very remarkable conclusion of all this is that the black holes that we expect to find in nature have to conform to this Kerr geometry. As the great theoretical astrophysicist Subramanyan Chandrasekhar subsequently commented, black holes are the most perfect macroscopic objects in the universe, being constructed just out of space and time; moreover, they are the simplest as well, since they can be exactly described by an explicitly known geometry (that of Kerr).

Following his work in this area, Hawking established a number of important results about black holes, such as an argument for its event horizon (its bounding surface) having to have the topology of a sphere. In collaboration with Carter and James Bardeen, in work published in 1973, he established some remarkable analogies between the behaviour of black holes and the basic laws of thermodynamics, where the horizon’s surface area and its surface gravity were shown to be analogous, respectively, to the thermodynamic quantities of entropy and temperature. It would be fair to say that in his highly active period leading up to this work, Hawking’s research in classical general relativity was the best anywhere in the world at that time.

Hawking, Bardeen and Carter took their “thermodynamic” behaviour of black holes to be little more than just an analogy, with no literal physical content. A year or so earlier, Jacob Bekenstein had shown that the demands of physical consistency imply – in the context of quantum mechanics – that a black hole must indeed have an actual physical entropy (“entropy” being a physicist’s measure of “disorder”) that is proportional to its horizon’s surface area, but he was unable to establish the proportionality factor precisely. Yet it had seemed, on the other hand, that the physical temperature of a black hole must be exactly zero, inconsistently with this analogy, since no form of energy could escape from it, which is why Hawking and his colleagues were not prepared to take their analogy completely seriously.

Hawking had then turned his attention to quantum effects in relation to black holes, and he embarked on a calculation to determine whether tiny rotating black holes that might perhaps be created in the big bang would radiate away their rotational energy. He was startled to find that irrespective of any rotation they would radiate away their energy – which, by Einstein’s E=mc2, means their mass. Accordingly, any black hole actually has a non-zero temperature, agreeing precisely with the Bardeen-Carter-Hawking analogy. Moreover, Hawking was able to supply the precise value “one quarter” for the entropy proportionality constant that Bekenstein had been unable to determine.

This radiation coming from black holes that Hawking predicted is now, very appropriately, referred to as Hawking radiation. For any black hole that is expected to arise in normal astrophysical processes, however, the Hawking radiation would be exceedingly tiny, and certainly unobservable directly by any techniques known today. But he argued that very tiny black holes could have been produced in the big bang itself, and the Hawking radiation from such holes would build up into a final explosion that might be observed. There appears to be no evidence for such explosions, showing that the big bang was not so accommodating as Hawking wished, and this was a great disappointment to him.

These achievements were certainly important on the theoretical side. They established the theory of black-hole thermodynamics: by combining the procedures of quantum (field) theory with those of general relativity, Hawking established that it is necessary also to bring in a third subject, thermodynamics. They are generally regarded as Hawking’s greatest contributions. That they have deep implications for future theories of fundamental physics is undeniable, but the detailed nature of these implications is still a matter of much heated debate.

Hawking himself was able to conclude from all this (though not with universal acceptance by particle physicists) that those fundamental constituents of ordinary matter – the protons – must ultimately disintegrate, although with a decay rate that is beyond present-day techniques for observing it. He also provided reasons for suspecting that the very rules of quantum mechanics might need modification, a viewpoint that he seemed originally to favour. But later (unfortunately, in my own opinion) he came to a different view, and at the Dublin international conference on gravity in July 2004, he publicly announced a change of mind (thereby conceding a bet with the Caltech physicist John Preskill) concerning his originally predicted “information loss” inside black holes.

Following his black-hole work, Hawking turned his attentions to the problem of quantum gravity, developing ingenious ideas for resolving some of the basic issues. Quantum gravity, which involves correctly imposing the quantum procedures of particle physics on to the very structure of space-time, is generally regarded as the most fundamental unsolved foundational issue in physics. One of its stated aims is to find a physical theory that is powerful enough to deal with the space-time singularities of classical general relativity in black holes and the big bang.

Hawking’s work, up to this point, although it had involved the procedures of quantum mechanics in the curved space-time setting of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, did not provide a quantum gravity theory. That would require the “quantisation” procedures to be applied to Einstein’s curved space-time itself, not just to physical fields within curved space-time.

With James Hartle, Hawking developed a quantum procedure for handling the big-bang singularity. This is referred to as the “no-boundary” idea, whereby the singularity is replaced by a smooth “cap”, this being likened to what happens at the north pole of the Earth, where the concept of longitude loses meaning (becomes singular) while the north pole itself has a perfectly good geometry.

To make sense of this idea, Hawking needed to invoke his notion of “imaginary time” (or “Euclideanisation”), which has the effect of converting the “pseudo-Riemannian” geometry of Einstein’s space-time into a more standard Riemannian one. Despite the ingenuity of many of these ideas, grave difficulties remain (one of these being how similar procedures could be applied to the singularities inside black holes, which is fundamentally problematic).

Big Bang Simulation

There are many other approaches to quantum gravity being pursued worldwide, and Hawking’s procedures, though greatly respected and still investigated, are not the most popularly followed, although all others have their share of fundamental difficulties also.

To the end of his life, Hawking continued with his research into the quantum-gravity problem, and the related issues of cosmology. But concurrently with his strictly research interests, he became increasingly involved with the popularisation of science, and of his own ideas in particular. This began with the writing of his astoundingly successful book A Brief History of Time (1988), which was translated into some 40 languages and sold over 25m copies worldwide.

Undoubtedly, the brilliant title was a contributing factor to the book’s phenomenal success. Also, the subject matter is something that grips the public imagination. And there is a directness and clarity of style, which Hawking must have developed as a matter of necessity when trying to cope with the limitations imposed by his physical disabilities. Before needing to rely on his computerised speech, he could talk only with great difficulty and expenditure of effort, so he had to do what he could with short sentences that were directly to the point. In addition, it is hard to deny that his physical condition must itself have caught the public’s imagination.

Although the dissemination of science among a broader public was certainly one of Hawking’s aims in writing his book, he also had the serious purpose of making money. His financial needs were considerable, as his entourage of family, nurses, healthcare helpers and increasingly expensive equipment demanded. Some, but not all, of this was covered by grants.

To invite Hawking to a conference always involved the organisers in serious calculations. The travel and accommodation expenses would be enormous, not least because of the sheer number of people who would need to accompany him. But a popular lecture by him would always be a sell-out, and special arrangements would be needed to find a lecture hall that was big enough. An additional factor would be the ensuring that all entrances, stairways, lifts, and so on would be adequate for disabled people in general, and for his wheelchair in particular.

He clearly enjoyed his fame, taking many opportunities to travel and to have unusual experiences (such as going down a mine shaft, visiting the south pole and undergoing the zero-gravity of free fall), and to meet other distinguished people.

The presentational polish of his public lectures increased with the years. Originally, the visual material would be line drawings on transparencies, presented by a student. But in later years impressive computer-generated visuals were used. He controlled the verbal material, sentence by sentence, as it would be delivered by his computer-generated American-accented voice. High-quality pictures and computer-generated graphics also featured in his later popular books The Illustrated Brief History of Time (1996) and The Universe in a Nutshell (2001). With his daughter Lucy he wrote the expository children’s science book George’s Secret Key to the Universe (2007), and he served as an editor, co-author and commentator for many other works of popular science.

He received many high accolades and honours. In particular, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the remarkably early age of 32 and received its highest honour, the Copley medal, in 2006. In 1979, he became the 17th holder of the Lucasian chair of natural philosophy in Cambridge, some 310 years after Sir Isaac Newton became its second holder. He became a Companion of Honour in 1989. He made a guest appearance on the television programme Star Trek: The Next Generation, appeared in cartoon form on The Simpsons and was portrayed in the movie The Theory of Everything (2014).

It is clear that he owed a great deal to his first wife, Jane Wilde, whom he married in 1965, and with whom he had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy. Jane was exceptionally supportive of him in many ways. One of the most important of these may well have been in allowing him to do things for himself to an unusual extent.

He was an extraordinarily determined person. He would insist that he should do things for himself. This, in turn, perhaps kept his muscles active in a way that delayed their atrophy, thereby slowing the progress of the disease. Nevertheless, his condition continued to deteriorate, until he had almost no movement left, and his speech could barely be made out at all except by a very few who knew him well.

He contracted pneumonia while in Switzerland in 1985, and a tracheotomy was necessary to save his life. Strangely, after this brush with death, the progress of his degenerative disease seemed to slow to a virtual halt. His tracheotomy prevented any form of speech, however, so that acquiring a computerised speech synthesiser came as a necessity at that time.

In the aftermath of his encounter with pneumonia, the Hawkings’ home was almost taken over by nurses and medical attendants, and he and Jane drifted apart. They were divorced in 1995. In the same year, Hawking married Elaine Mason, who had been one of his nurses. Her support took a different form from Jane’s. In his far weaker physical state, the love, care and attention that she provided sustained him in all his activities. Yet this relationship also came to an end, and he and Elaine were divorced in 2007.

Despite his terrible physical circumstance, he almost always remained positive about life. He enjoyed his work, the company of other scientists, the arts, the fruits of his fame, his travels. He took great pleasure in children, sometimes entertaining them by swivelling around in his motorised wheelchair. Social issues concerned him. He promoted scientific understanding. He could be generous and was very often witty. On occasion he could display something of the arrogance that is not uncommon among physicists working at the cutting edge, and he had an autocratic streak. Yet he could also show a true humility that is the mark of greatness.

Hawking had many students, some of whom later made significant names for themselves. Yet being a student of his was not easy. He had been known to run his wheelchair over the foot of a student who caused him irritation. His pronouncements carried great authority, but his physical difficulties often caused them to be enigmatic in their brevity. An able colleague might be able to disentangle the intent behind them, but it would be a different matter for an inexperienced student.

To such a student, a meeting with Hawking could be a daunting experience. Hawking might ask the student to pursue some obscure route, the reason for which could seem deeply mysterious. Clarification was not available, and the student would be presented with what seemed indeed to be like the revelation of an oracle – something whose truth was not to be questioned, but which if correctly interpreted and developed would surely lead onwards to a profound truth. Perhaps we are all left with this impression now.

Hawking is survived by his children.

R.I.P. to a true underdog who did not allow personal obstacles to dim his prospects and participation in Life...We're better off for it.

END

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

You can also download Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History Of Time' in PDF Format from the link provided in the Timbuktu Portal. The featured Documentary of the week is hosted by Stephen Hawking taking us for a ride through the Cosmos as he brings us in on the 'Story Of Everything'.

Its time for our first Book review of the year, and once again, the archives come to the rescue as we revisit Frantz Fanon's analysis of Racism as a pathological relationship of Co-dependency between Racist and Victim.

This is one of the most profound insights that made 'Black Skin, White Masks' my favourite book.

Instead of focusing purely on the negative effect of Racism on its victims, Fanon also went as far as analysing its negative Psychological effect on the perpetrator as well. In doing this he observed that it is equally neurotic and psychologically dysfunctional for a Black person to consider themselves 'inferior' as it is for a White person to consider themselves 'superior'.

Racism is thus in effect sustained by the dysfunctional Psychological transaction-dynamic between Perpetrator and Victim. However, in reality both suffer from a form of Psychological neurosis or delusion since it is a distortion for either one to regard himself as either 'superior' or 'inferior'.

'Superiority' and 'Inferiority' of either are thus not objective facts, but mere perceptions of mind.

An understanding of Racism as a form of Pathology is both significant and helpful.

It explains the need to look for external validation of a non-existent 'superiority' through the systematic destruction of Black self-esteem using Racist propaganda. This assault continues to occur through the destruction and denigration of African Cultural values, Religion and Language, a process that began in earnest with Colonialism and continues in various shapes and forms today.

The appropriation and integration of elements Ancient Egyptian culture in the world's mainstream culture today also remains largely unacknowledged. Egypt provided the conceptual framework and crucible within which the ideas of Civilization were crystallized and developed, and even the so-called 'alternative' Mystery Sects like Alchemy have their roots in the Hermetics of Ancient Egypt as contained in the Emerald Tablets Of Thoth.

Conclusion

Racism is therefore not different from any other disorder of the mind like Schizophrenia. Regrettably but not surprisingly, Racism has served as the driving force behind a persistent program to feed the pathological reward mechanism that provides the sweet Psychological Elixir of 'superiority' to the Racist.

Wearing The Mask

In ending, I only ask that the following words by Steve Biko may assist in helping you understand the importance of rediscovering the true self:

“It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.- (I Write What I Like, 1978).

In stating the above, it is also important to appreciate that Fanon's arguments apply with equal force to Blacks who consider themselves 'superior' to others...Ultimately, our self-esteem should not be dependent on the perceived inferiority of others.

Check out the link below to Fanon's 'Black Skin White Masks' in the ‘Timbuktu Portal’ Page for the full text of the Book.

Also keep it locked for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’, a vast near-future superhero universe steeped in real mythology, culture and history from across Africa.

Its time for our first Book review of the year, and once again, the archives come to the rescue as we revisit Frantz Fanon's analysis of Racism as a pathological relationship of Co-dependency between Racist and Victim.

This is one of the most profound insights that made 'Black Skin, White Masks' my favourite book.

Instead of focusing purely on the negative effect of Racism on its victims, Fanon also went as far as analysing its negative Psychological effect on the perpetrator as well. In doing this he observed that it is equally neurotic and psychologically dysfunctional for a Black person to consider themselves 'inferior' as it is for a White person to consider themselves 'superior'.

Racism is thus in effect sustained by the dysfunctional Psychological transaction-dynamic between Perpetrator and Victim. However, in reality both suffer from a form of Psychological neurosis or delusion since it is a distortion for either one to regard himself as either 'superior' or 'inferior'.

'Superiority' and 'Inferiority' of either are thus not objective facts, but mere perceptions of mind.

An understanding of Racism as a form of Pathology is both significant and helpful.

It explains the need to look for external validation of a non-existent 'superiority' through the systematic destruction of Black self-esteem using Racist propaganda. This assault continues to occur through the destruction and denigration of African Cultural values, Religion and Language, a process that began in earnest with Colonialism and continues in various shapes and forms today.

The appropriation and integration of elements Ancient Egyptian culture in the world's mainstream culture today also remains largely unacknowledged. Egypt provided the conceptual framework and crucible within which the ideas of Civilization were crystallized and developed, and even the so-called 'alternative' Mystery Sects like Alchemy have their roots in the Hermetics of Ancient Egypt as contained in the Emerald Tablets Of Thoth.

Conclusion

Racism is therefore not different from any other disorder of the mind like Schizophrenia. Regrettably but not surprisingly, Racism has served as the driving force behind a persistent program to feed the pathological reward mechanism that provides the sweet Psychological Elixir of 'superiority' to the Racist.

Wearing The Mask

In ending, I only ask that the following words by Steve Biko may assist in helping you understand the importance of rediscovering the true self:

“It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth.- (I Write What I Like, 1978).

In stating the above, it is also important to appreciate that Fanon's arguments apply with equal force to Blacks who consider themselves 'superior' to others...Ultimately, our self-esteem should not be dependent on the perceived inferiority of others.

Check out the link below to Fanon's 'Black Skin White Masks' in the ‘Timbuktu Portal’ Page for the full text of the Book.

Also keep it locked for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’, a vast near-future superhero universe steeped in real mythology, culture and history from across Africa.

"In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head. But I would have executed much greater things, had not government always opposed my exertions, and placed others in situations which would have suited my talents.

It was the full conviction of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illumination. I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati." — Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt was clearly reluctant to form the Illuminati, which was certainly a surprise to me..To understand why, join us as we continue with Part 2 of 'The Masonic Agenda', considering the motivations behind the formation of the Illuminati.

Adam Weishaupt & The Formation Of The Illuminati: Enlightened Progressives

Adam Wieshaupt is celebrated in the history of Freemasonry as the founder of the Order of Illuminati of Bavaria.

He was born in February 6, 1748, at Ingoldstadt, and was educated by the Jesuits, toward whom, however, he afterward exhibited the bitterest enmity, and was equally hated by them in return. In 1772 he became Extraordinary Professor of Law, and in 1775, Professor of Natural and Canon Law, at the University of Ingoldstadt. As the Professorship of Canon Law had been hitherto held only by an Ecclesiastic, his appointment gave great offense to the Clergy.

Weishaupt, whose views were cosmopolitan, and who knew and condemned the Bigotry and superstitions of the Priests, established an opposing party in the University, consisting principally of young men whose confidence and friendship he had gained.

They assembled in a private apartment, and there he discussed with them philosophic subjects, and sought to imbue them with a liberal spirit. This was the beginning of the Order of the Illuminati, or the Enlightened -a name he bestowed upon his disciples as a token of their advance in intelligence and moral progress.

Illuminati Founder: Adam Weishaupt

Connections To Freemasonry, Jesuit Conflict & Exile

At first, the Illuminati was totally unconnected with Freemasonry, of which Weishaupt was not at that time a member. It was not until 1777 that he was initiated in the Lodge Theodore of Good Counsel, at Munich. Thenceforward, Weishaupt sought to incorporate his system into that of Freemasonry.

But the Clergy, and especially the Jesuits, redoubled their efforts to destroy Weishaupt. In 1784, all secret Associations were prohibited by a Royal decree, and in the following year Weishaupt was deprived of his Professorship and banished from Bavaria.

He was exiled to Gotha, where he was kindly received by Duke Ernest, who made him a Counselor and gave him a pension.

There he remained until he died in 1811.

Publications In Exile

During his exile at Gotha he wrote and published many works, some on philosophical subjects and several in explanation and defense of Illuminism.

His Jesuit detractors continued to vigorously oppose him, and Weishaupt's response can essentially be crystallised in the opening quote. Weishaupt clearly sought to live in a Meritocracy in which Europe's Clergy and Monarchy would automatically lose their Monopoly on Social, Economic and Political Power.

It is probably the reason Weishaupt became so vilified by his detractors who quickly grasped the undesirable implications of his Rationalist Liberal Philosophy for them, and actively sought to prevent the sort of 'Enlightened/Illuminated' Social Order Weishaupt sought to create.

Conclusion

Adam Weishaupt's ambition was a virtuous one; that it failed may perhaps be the world's misfortune. Weishaupt's place in history should therefore be among the unsuccessful Reformers and not among evil Conspirators.

In time, Weishaupt's Rationalist Liberal Philosophy paved the way for Liberal Democracy Worldwide, and can be regarded as part of the Protestant Reformation extending it beyond questions of Religion to Social, Political and Economic questions...The shockwaves could not be contained because Iluminism quickly manifested in the American Revolution...A Liberal Revolution against the Monarchy and Clergy of England which in turn served as inspiration for the French Revolution.

In light of the discrepancy between what Weishaupt sought to achieve by forming the Illuminati, and the infamous, vile corrupt agenda the Organisation is now identified with, we are compelled to trace how it is that Weishaupt's Noble Society was corrupted, becoming the face of the same evil Conspiracy that Weishaupt himself sought to prevent by forming the Organisation?

Stay tuned for Part 3...The link to Part 1 of 'The Masonic Agenda' is at the bottom in case you havent had a chance to check it out.

We've also included a download link to Weishaupt's Illuminati writings in the 'Timbuktu Portal' Page.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

"In another situation, and in an active station in life, I should have been keenly occupied, and the founding of an order would have never come into my head. But I would have executed much greater things, had not government always opposed my exertions, and placed others in situations which would have suited my talents.

It was the full conviction of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illumination. I am proud to be known to the world as the founder of the Illuminati." — Adam Weishaupt

Adam Weishaupt was clearly reluctant to form the Illuminati, which was certainly a surprise to me..To understand why, join us as we continue with Part 2 of 'The Masonic Agenda', considering the motivations behind the formation of the Illuminati.
Adam Weishaupt & The Formation Of The Illuminati: Enlightened Progressives

Adam Wieshaupt is celebrated in the history of Freemasonry as the founder of the Order of Illuminati of Bavaria.

He was born in February 6, 1748, at Ingoldstadt, and was educated by the Jesuits, toward whom, however, he afterward exhibited the bitterest enmity, and was equally hated by them in return. In 1772 he became Extraordinary Professor of Law, and in 1775, Professor of Natural and Canon Law, at the University of Ingoldstadt. As the Professorship of Canon Law had been hitherto held only by an Ecclesiastic, his appointment gave great offense to the Clergy.

Weishaupt, whose views were cosmopolitan, and who knew and condemned the Bigotry and superstitions of the Priests, established an opposing party in the University, consisting principally of young men whose confidence and friendship he had gained.

They assembled in a private apartment, and there he discussed with them philosophic subjects, and sought to imbue them with a liberal spirit. This was the beginning of the Order of the Illuminati, or the Enlightened -a name he bestowed upon his disciples as a token of their advance in intelligence and moral progress.

At first, the Illuminati was totally unconnected with Freemasonry, of which Weishaupt was not at that time a member. It was not until 1777 that he was initiated in the Lodge Theodore of Good Counsel, at Munich. Thenceforward, Weishaupt sought to incorporate his system into that of Freemasonry.

But the Clergy, and especially the Jesuits, redoubled their efforts to destroy Weishaupt. In 1784, all secret Associations were prohibited by a Royal decree, and in the following year Weishaupt was deprived of his Professorship and banished from Bavaria.

He was exiled to Gotha, where he was kindly received by Duke Ernest, who made him a Counselor and gave him a pension.

There he remained until he died in 1811.

Publications In Exile

During his exile at Gotha he wrote and published many works, some on philosophical subjects and several in explanation and defense of Illuminism.

His Jesuit detractors continued to vigorously oppose him, and Weishaupt's response can essentially be crystallised in the opening quote. Weishaupt clearly sought to live in a Meritocracy in which Europe's Clergy and Monarchy would automatically lose their Monopoly on Social, Economic and Political Power.

It is probably the reason Weishaupt became so vilified by his detractors who quickly grasped the undesirable implications of his Rationalist Liberal Philosophy for them, and actively sought to prevent the sort of 'Enlightened/Illuminated' Social Order Weishaupt sought to create.

Conclusion

Adam Weishaupt's ambition was a virtuous one; that it failed may perhaps be the world's misfortune. Weishaupt's place in history should therefore be among the unsuccessful Reformers and not among evil Conspirators.

In time, Weishaupt's Rationalist Liberal Philosophy paved the way for Liberal Democracy Worldwide, and can be regarded as part of the Protestant Reformation extending it beyond questions of Religion to Social, Political and Economic questions...The shockwaves could not be contained because Iluminism quickly manifested in the American Revolution...A Liberal Revolution against the Monarchy and Clergy of England which in turn served as inspiration for the French Revolution.

In light of the discrepancy between what Weishaupt sought to achieve by forming the Illuminati, and the infamous, vile corrupt agenda the Organisation is now identified with, we are compelled to trace how it is that Weishaupt's Noble Society was corrupted, becoming the face of the same evil Conspiracy that Weishaupt himself sought to prevent by forming the Organisation?

Stay tuned for Part 3...The link to Part 1 of 'The Masonic Agenda' is at the bottom in case you havent had a chance to check it out.

We've also included a download link to Weishaupt's Illuminati writings in the 'Timbuktu Portal' Page.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.
We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

Despite the dominant point of view in terms of which HIV is understood as the cause of AIDS, a convincing case can also still be made against this hypothesis. For the purposes of this discussion however, we will treat the hypothesis as correct. We therefore trace the origins of AIDS within the framework of the current paradigm by unearthing the alleged source of HIV, the accepted cause of AIDS

The Congo Connection

Between 1957 and 1960 Immunologist Hilary Koprowski tested the Polio vaccine in nearly one million people in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. His Polio Vaccine concoction was cultured in tissue taken from chimpanzees infected with SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus), a virus similar to HIV.

After Injection with the Polio vaccine, SIV would be introduced into the bloodstream allowing SIV to mutate into HIV from within the Human host.

Not everyone agrees with this theory however, and it has been denied quite strongly in most Scientific circles which favour the theory that HIV crossed over from monkeys to Humans because of the monkey meat consumed by Africans in the Congo.

This however does not adequately explain how it is that SIV crossed the species barrier from monkeys to become HIV in Humans after the Humans had consumed the flesh of the SIV infected monkeys. This is complicated further by the fact that are few if any, reported cases of HIV acquired from eating Monkey meat even though Monkey meat had been consumed for Millenia.

Meme Accusing Immunologist Hilary Koprowski

In my view, the Polio Vaccine theory seems more likely to be correct, as the 'SIV monkey meat theory' cannot account for the discrepancy of HIV not having existed or reported for the Millenia monkey meat had been consumed.

As such, the 'Polio Vaccine Theory'' remains an alternative viewpoint worthy of consideration.

This is one of those topics I really recommend people do their own research and come up with their own view on. So for more information, we've provided a link to an article dealing with both sides of the argument on the HIV Origins question. Our YouTube Channel's 'Health & Longevity" Playlist features the documentary 'The Origin Of AIDS' which explores the Congo HIV connection in detail.

Meanwhile, check out the new the 'Africans Today' Group on Reddit we decided to go with after Beta Testing a Facebook Group...You can post the topics you would like to discuss and have a conversation on Reddit using the link below.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.

We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.

Despite the dominant point of view in terms of which HIV is understood as the cause of AIDS, a convincing case can also still be made against this hypothesis. For the purposes of this discussion however, we will treat the hypothesis as correct. We therefore trace the origins of AIDS within the framework of the current paradigm by unearthing the alleged source of HIV, the accepted cause of AIDS

The Congo Connection

Between 1957 and 1960 Immunologist Hilary Koprowski tested the Polio vaccine in nearly one million people in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. His Polio Vaccine concoction was cultured in tissue taken from chimpanzees infected with SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus), a virus similar to HIV.

After Injection with the Polio vaccine, SIV would be introduced into the bloodstream allowing SIV to mutate into HIV from within the Human host.

Not everyone agrees with this theory however, and it has been denied quite strongly in most Scientific circles which favour the theory that HIV crossed over from monkeys to Humans because of the monkey meat consumed by Africans in the Congo.

This however does not adequately explain how it is that SIV crossed the species barrier from monkeys to become HIV in Humans after the Humans had consumed the flesh of the SIV infected monkeys. This is complicated further by the fact that are few if any, reported cases of HIV acquired from eating Monkey meat even though Monkey meat had been consumed for Millenia.

Meme Accusing Immunologist Hilary Koprowski

In my view, the Polio Vaccine theory seems more likely to be correct, as the 'SIV monkey meat theory' cannot account for the discrepancy of HIV not having existed or reported for the Millenia monkey meat had been consumed.

As such, the 'Polio Vaccine Theory'' remains an alternative viewpoint worthy of consideration.

This is one of those topics I really recommend people do their own research and come up with their own view on. So for more information, we've provided a link to an article dealing with both sides of the argument on the HIV Origins question. Our YouTube Channel's 'Health & Longevity" Playlist features the documentary 'The Origin Of AIDS' which explores the Congo HIV connection in detail.

Meanwhile, check out the new the 'Africans Today' Group on Reddit we decided to go with after Beta Testing a Facebook Group...You can post the topics you would like to discuss and have a conversation on Reddit using the link below.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for our upcoming Content Sharing collaboration with Leti Arts, Africa’s top Afro-Noir Mobile App based Comics and Games Publisher of titles such as ‘Africa’s Legends’.
We've also updated the Timbuktu Portal with a great new Free Online Digital Marketing course we found on Hubspot.com so you can up your Online Marketing game for work or that business you've got going...Peep it.
Dont forget to download our Android App free on Googleplay for easier Navigation on your Mobile Phone.
One!
Links & CreditsReddit Group: https://www.reddit.com/r/AfricansToday/Origin of AIDS Article: http://www.rense.com/general52/ire.htm

Conspiracy theories about the Freemasons abound, and need no repetition.

This is one of the reasons we didnt cover this topic before until we felt we had something new to add to the conversation...I really didnt want to do yet another 'Occult' rendition of the Masonic agenda.

For our purposes, we will attempt to trace the Masonic agenda in the world's 'Realpolitik' with particular reference to the Masonic role in the creation of the New World Order.

Our journey begins with the History and teachings of Freemasonry as a necessary precursor to discussing and understanding the broader Masonic 'Realpolitik' agenda.

HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR: ORIGINS

After Christian fighters captured Jerusalem during the First Crusade, groups of pilgrims from across Western Europe began visiting the Holy Land. Around 1118, a French knight named Hugues de Payens founded a military order devoted to protecting these pilgrims, calling it the Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon (later the Knights Templar).

In 1129 the knights received the formal endorsement of the Catholic Church, and new recruits and lavish donations began pouring in from across Europe. Known for their austere code of conduct and signature style of dress (white habits emblazoned with a red cross), the Templars established new chapters throughout Western Europe. They developed a reputation as fierce warriors during the Crusades and set up a network of banks, gaining enormous financial sway. At the height of their influence, they boasted a sizable fleet of ships, owned the island of Cyprus and served as a primary lender to European monarchs and nobles.

Muslim soldiers retook Jerusalem and turned the tide of the Crusades in the late 12th century, forcing the Templars to relocate their base of operations to Paris. Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V reluctantly dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312. While most historians agree that the Knights Templar fully disbanded 700 years ago, some people believe the order went underground and remains in existence to this day.

FREEMASONRY EMERGES

In the 18th century, certain organizations, most notably the Freemasons, revived some of the medieval knights’ symbols and traditions.

The teachings and traditions of Freemasonry are essentially comprised of symbolism, allegory and metaphor inspired by the ancient construction of the Temple of Solomon, which is applied as an esoteric representation for principles of personal transformation.

The famous system of “degrees” of Freemasonry originated from the secular tradition of medieval craft Guilds, since the Guilds regulated the qualifications of all stone masons.

The Masonic tradition of sworn secrecy came from the legitimate quasi-legal “trade secret” needs of the professional craft Guilds of stone masons in the 15th century. Although modern Freemasonry no longer involves any trade craft requiring such protection, that practice is still valid for the sake of tradition. Indeed, that early legal doctrine of protecting “trade secrets” remains an important part of international intellectual property law to this day.

The fraternity of Freemasonry emphasizes the metaphorical Temple of Solomon conceptually, and concentrates on the symbolic aspects of its physical construction by highly advanced stone work in ancient times, based upon teachings from surviving Templars from ca. 1446 AD.

Building on the knowledge acquired by the Knights Templar Order from its nine years of deep underground archaeological excavation of the actual Temple of Solomon from 1118 AD, including an accumulated library of the Essenes discovered within that Temple, the Freemasons emerged and attributed their famous stone work and building skills to their reverse engineering from Solomon's ancient site, supported by mentoring from Egyptian Priestly Orders.

Templar Knight & Temple Of Solomon

Templar Knights, Freemasons & The Creation Of The Illuminati

To understand the Illuminati, we must understand two specific institutions - the Freemasons and the Catholic authorities.

The Bible and specifically the Temple of Solomon gave the Freemasons a religious and acceptable framework to work on, and the symbolism employed with the operative mason’s tools was worked to match the ancient mysteries such as the “as above, so below” Hermetic principle.

It is in the power that lay in this Esoteric Knowledge combined with the power of Catholic Church Orders, in particular, the Jesuits that we can unlock the riddle behind the creation of the Illuminati and its objectives.

Join us for Part 2 as we explore The Illuminati.

Our featured documentary of the Week 'The Esoteric Agenda' can be viewed off the Home Page, and will provide more insight and information on the topic for the purposes of our continued discussion.

Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Meanwhile, peep the links below for the updated "Masonic Agenda Part 2" if you havent read it already, together with the new 'Africans Today' Group on Reddit, which we've decided to go with after Beta Testing a Facebook Group. ...You can post links and topics you would like to discuss on the Reddit Page.

Conspiracy theories about the Freemasons abound, and need no repetition.

This is one of the reasons we didnt cover this topic before until we felt we had something new to add to the conversation...I really didnt want to do yet another 'Occult' rendition of the Masonic agenda.

For our purposes, we will attempt to trace the Masonic agenda in the world's 'Realpolitik' with particular reference to the Masonic role in the creation of the New World Order.

Our journey begins with the History and teachings of Freemasonry as a necessary precursor to discussing and understanding the broader Masonic 'Realpolitik' agenda.

HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR: ORIGINS

After Christian fighters captured Jerusalem during the First Crusade, groups of pilgrims from across Western Europe began visiting the Holy Land. Around 1118, a French knight named Hugues de Payens founded a military order devoted to protecting these pilgrims, calling it the Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon (later the Knights Templar).

In 1129 the knights received the formal endorsement of the Catholic Church, and new recruits and lavish donations began pouring in from across Europe. Known for their austere code of conduct and signature style of dress (white habits emblazoned with a red cross), the Templars established new chapters throughout Western Europe. They developed a reputation as fierce warriors during the Crusades and set up a network of banks, gaining enormous financial sway. At the height of their influence, they boasted a sizable fleet of ships, owned the island of Cyprus and served as a primary lender to European monarchs and nobles.

Muslim soldiers retook Jerusalem and turned the tide of the Crusades in the late 12th century, forcing the Templars to relocate their base of operations to Paris. Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V reluctantly dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312. While most historians agree that the Knights Templar fully disbanded 700 years ago, some people believe the order went underground and remains in existence to this day.

FREEMASONRY EMERGES

In the 18th century, certain organizations, most notably the Freemasons, revived some of the medieval knights’ symbols and traditions.

The teachings and traditions of Freemasonry are essentially comprised of symbolism, allegory and metaphor inspired by the ancient construction of the Temple of Solomon, which is applied as an esoteric representation for principles of personal transformation.

The famous system of “degrees” of Freemasonry originated from the secular tradition of medieval craft Guilds, since the Guilds regulated the qualifications of all stone masons.

The Masonic tradition of sworn secrecy came from the legitimate quasi-legal “trade secret” needs of the professional craft Guilds of stone masons in the 15th century. Although modern Freemasonry no longer involves any trade craft requiring such protection, that practice is still valid for the sake of tradition. Indeed, that early legal doctrine of protecting “trade secrets” remains an important part of international intellectual property law to this day.

The fraternity of Freemasonry emphasizes the metaphorical Temple of Solomon conceptually, and concentrates on the symbolic aspects of its physical construction by highly advanced stone work in ancient times, based upon teachings from surviving Templars from ca. 1446 AD.

Building on the knowledge acquired by the Knights Templar Order from its nine years of deep underground archaeological excavation of the actual Temple of Solomon from 1118 AD, including an accumulated library of the Essenes discovered within that Temple, the Freemasons emerged and attributed their famous stone work and building skills to their reverse engineering from Solomon's ancient site, supported by mentoring from Egyptian Priestly Orders.

Templar Knight & Temple Of Solomon

Templar Knights, Freemasons & The Creation Of The Illuminati

To understand the Illuminati, we must understand two specific institutions - the Freemasons and the Catholic authorities.

The Bible and specifically the Temple of Solomon gave the Freemasons a religious and acceptable framework to work on, and the symbolism employed with the operative mason’s tools was worked to match the ancient mysteries such as the “as above, so below” Hermetic principle.

It is in the power that lay in this Esoteric Knowledge combined with the power of Catholic Church Orders, in particular, the Jesuits that we can unlock the riddle behind the creation of the Illuminati and its objectives.

Join us for Part 2 as we explore The Illuminati.

Our featured documentary of the Week 'The Esoteric Agenda' can be viewed off the Home Page, and will provide more insight and information on the topic for the purposes of our continued discussion.

Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Meanwhile, peep the links below for the updated "Masonic Agenda Part 2" if you havent read it already, together with the new 'Africans Today' Group on Reddit, which we've decided to go with after Beta Testing a Facebook Group. ...You can post links and topics you would like to discuss on the Reddit Page.

The Retro-Edition continues with another favourite 'blast from the past' taking a look at Transhumanism and Posthumanism. I've also taken the chance to update it with some information on the soon to be activated, 5G Network.

Transhumanism, Posthumanism & Evolution

Transhumanism & Posthumanism represent predicted future stages of Human Evolution. It is predicted that technology will eventually merge with Human Consciousness, resulting in a 'New' Kind of Immortal being whose existence or Consciousness transcends the death of the Human Body by existing as Information within a Computer Network.

Technology & The Singularity

The 'Singularity Hypothesis' credited to Ray Kurzweil, proposes that the exponential advancement in technology we are presently experiencing will eventually lead to the invention of artificial super-intelligence which will in turn abruptly trigger even faster runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.

As a result, unless humans can process information at the same rate as the technology of the time, we will be left behind to dwell as second class Citizens in a world where the technology we developed and once-controlled is now independent of our will.

A technology-driven Apocalypse which Kurzweil dubs 'The Singularity'.

In 'The Singularity', unless we can process information as fast as the machines, we will be left behind. Under these conditions, our only option will be to 'upgrade' our Consciousness and capabilities using technology.

This will lead to an intermediary 'Transhumanist' phase in which Man will begin the transition to Machine. It will be characterised by the increased integration of technology into our bodies eg Computer chips.

Post-Humanism: Lessons From Classic TV Show "Fringe'

A 'Posthuman' era will eventually dawn in which our Consciousness will only exist as part of a Computer Network. We will essentially have to upload our minds into a 'Super Mind Network' where Mankind will continue to exist purely as information.

Its important to note that not everyone agrees with Kurzweil's notion of 'The Singularity', but it is certainly worth debating and considering, particularly because underlying the hypothesis is the idea that our minds can essentially be reduced to a Digital imprint.

This Digital information can then be projected into a Computer Network like all other Digital information.....Indeed the issue goes right to the question of the nature of 'Consciousness' itself.

For a picture of what a 'Posthuman' world may look like, the classic Sci-Fi TV Series 'Fringe' does an excellent job. 'Fringe' is a gem that poses significant questions and explores the nature of a 'Posthuman' world.

In 'Fringe' JJ Abrams appears to conclude that our human qualities such as 'Love' are too unique to ever be extinguished or reduced to Computer code. Therefore, the human spirit will ultimately triumph over the sterile Posthuman world of 'The Singularity' represented by the 'Observers'.

5G Network & Virtual Reality: Towards Post-Humanism

Into the mix comes 5G Technology which will raise Human-Network Integration on a Planetary scale, making new experiences possible in augmented and virtual reality. The fear is that we may become so immersed in Virtual Reality that it will change our understanding of 'Reality' itself, as well altering what it means to be a Human being.

Uploaded Consciousness

Conclusion

As Artificial Intelligence continues its rise, we are all faced with the same question: 'Are you willing to upload yourself?'

The documentaries 'Technocalypse' and 'Tranceformation' devote considerable time to discussing Transhumanism and Posthumanism as well as their impact on Human Evolution. They can be viewed in our YouTube Channel's 'Spiritual Quest & Consciousness' Playlist.

Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Also visit our new Pinterest Page @ https://za.pinterest.com/vhedzasculturelounge/ to view and download Photos we feature in articles that you may like...The Anunnaki Universe collage featuring images of the Ancient Anunnaki realms of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon and Meso-America completes our current Pinterest collection.

The Retro-Edition continues with another favourite 'blast from the past' taking a look at Transhumanism and Posthumanism. I've also taken the chance to update it with some information on the soon to be activated, 5G Network.
Transhumanism, Posthumanism & Evolution
Transhumanism & Posthumanism represent predicted future stages of Human Evolution. It is predicted that technology will eventually merge with Human Consciousness, resulting in a 'New' Kind of Immortal being whose existence or Consciousness transcends the death of the Human Body by existing as Information within a Computer Network.
Technology & The Singularity
The 'Singularity Hypothesis' credited to Ray Kurzweil, proposes that the exponential advancement in technology we are presently experiencing will eventually lead to the invention of artificial super-intelligence which will in turn abruptly trigger even faster runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.
As a result, unless humans can process information at the same rate as the technology of the time, we will be left behind to dwell as second class Citizens in a world where the technology we developed and once-controlled is now independent of our will.
A technology-driven Apocalypse which Kurzweil dubs 'The Singularity'.
In 'The Singularity', unless we can process information as fast as the machines, we will be left behind. Under these conditions, our only option will be to 'upgrade' our Consciousness and capabilities using technology.
This will lead to an intermediary 'Transhumanist' phase in which Man will begin the transition to Machine. It will be characterised by the increased integration of technology into our bodies eg Computer chips.
Post-Humanism: Lessons From Classic TV Show "Fringe'
A 'Posthuman' era will eventually dawn in which our Consciousness will only exist as part of a Computer Network. We will essentially have to upload our minds into a 'Super Mind Network' where Mankind will continue to exist purely as information.
Its important to note that not everyone agrees with Kurzweil's notion of 'The Singularity', but it is certainly worth debating and considering, particularly because underlying the hypothesis is the idea that our minds can essentially be reduced to a Digital imprint.
This Digital information can then be projected into a Computer Network like all other Digital information.....Indeed the issue goes right to the question of the nature of 'Consciousness' itself.
For a picture of what a 'Posthuman' world may look like, the classic Sci-Fi TV Series 'Fringe' does an excellent job. 'Fringe' is a gem that poses significant questions and explores the nature of a 'Posthuman' world.
In 'Fringe' JJ Abrams appears to conclude that our human qualities such as 'Love' are too unique to ever be extinguished or reduced to Computer code. Therefore, the human spirit will ultimately triumph over the sterile Posthuman world of 'The Singularity' represented by the 'Observers'.
5G Network & Virtual Reality: Towards Post-Humanism
Into the mix comes 5G Technology which will raise Human-Network Integration on a Planetary scale, making new experiences possible in augmented and virtual reality. The fear is that we may become so immersed in Virtual Reality that it will change our understanding of 'Reality' itself, as well altering what it means to be a Human being.
Uploaded Consciousness
Conclusion
As Artificial Intelligence continues its rise, we are all faced with the same question: 'Are you willing to upload yourself?'
The documentaries 'Technocalypse' and 'Tranceformation' devote considerable time to discussing Transhumanism and Posthumanism as well as their impact on Human Evolution. They can be viewed in our YouTube Channel's 'Spiritual Quest & Consciousness' Playlist.
Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Also visit our new Pinterest Page @ https://za.pinterest.com/vhedzasculturelounge/ to view and download Photos we feature in articles that you may like...The Anunnaki Universe collage featuring images of the Ancient Anunnaki realms of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon and Meso-America completes our current Pinterest collection.

"They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, we were crossing racial lines." (Bobby Seale: Black Panther Party Founding Member)

Its no coincidence that Marvel's Black Panther Film features a scene in which our hero, the King of Wakanda is seated on his Throne. The scene which is based on a famous photograph of Huey Newton, one of the Founding Member of the Black Panther Party, is a homage not only to Huey Newton himself, but the entire Black Panther Resistance movement.

It is a reference to actual History within what is essentially a fictional narrative. Nevertheless, in making this reference, we are reminded of the real Black Panther Party, and ultimately, the reality of Black, African-American and broader class struggle that the Black Panther Party represented.

In recognising this struggle, we are similarly confounded by its virtual disappearance, only to discover that this disappearance was effectively planned and executed at the highest levels of American Government via Counter-Intelligence Programmes such as the now infamous COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO: STATE REPRESSION OF PROTEST MOVEMENTS

COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive, including anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists of the Civil Rights Movement or Black Power movement (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party) and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.

The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971.

Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized". Some of the Black Panthers affected included Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway.

On March 24, 1971, The Washington Post ran a cover story on the vast program initiated by the FBI in 1956 to neutralize suspicious persons and organizations. Although initially formed to target the Communist Party U.S.A., it was quickly expanded to include a wide range of groups considered “subversive.”

No segment had been as central to COINTELPRO operations as civil rights activists. A wider scope of the FBI’s actions, however, was not known until Congressional hearings five years later. What came to light was exceptionally chilling—seeped in its own racism, without any checks or balances, the FBI devoted more resources to harming the Civil Rights movement than any other task in its purview.

J Edgar Hoover: FBI Director

Every major advocate for black people in the country had been targeted by the Bureau. In fact, there was little differentiation between ideological lines and black leadership. In a meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson, Hoover said in reference to black nationalist Malcolm X and integrationist King, “we wouldn’t have any problem if we could get those two guys fighting, if we could get them to kill one another off…”

LEGACY: FROM COINTELPRO TO NYPD'S HIP HOP SQUAD (RAPCOINTELPRO)

COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day, and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.

Hoover’s behavior is often viewed as paranoid and even exceptional, but he operated with the full sanction of the wider state. During the civil rights movement, three U.S. presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon all supported Hoover’s efforts which were codified to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” targeted organizations. This would be achieved through various and sundry tools, including illegal activities.

COINTELPRO used informants, agent provocateurs, infiltrators, legal and illegal wiretaps, break-ins, false correspondence, and “bad-jacketing,” which was the act of making a legitimate member of a group appear to be a collaborator with the state. Psychological warfare included calling the parents of young civil rights activists to inform them that their children had been murdered or kidnapped.

For the past decade, the New York Police Department has had an established 'Hip Hop Squad' monitoring the activities and influence of the Hip Hop Industry. This seems to be an adapted version of COINTELPRO for the 21st Century dubbed 'RAPCOINTELPRO'.

Conclusion

The FBI ultimately succeeded in neutralising organisations like the Black Panther Party as charges were brought against the top membership who were then imprisoned for long periods. Mutulu Shakur and Geronimo Pratt are amongst the most known former Black Panther leaders handed long prison sentences.

Other members like Assata Shakur sought exile in Cuba, and those that remained, most notably Tupac's mother, faced a hostile system as 'Red-flagged' individuals with limited Job opportunities etc even when they were not convicted of any crimes.

Nevertheless, the Black Panther Party symbolised an important resurgence in class struggle within America post Civil Rights, and the fact that today we have a Film that has become a Pop-Culture phenomenon bears witness to the Black Panther Party's impact.

Check out the links below for more on COINTELPRO, the Black Panther Party and the NYPD's Hip Hop Taskforce.

Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Also visit our new Pinterest Page @ https://za.pinterest.com/vhedzasculturelounge/ to view and download Photos we feature in articles that you may like...The Anunnaki Universe collage featuring images of the Ancient Anunnaki realms of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon and Meso-America completes our current Pinterest collection.

"They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, we were crossing racial lines." (Bobby Seale: Black Panther Party Founding Member)

Its no coincidence that Marvel's Black Panther Film features a scene in which our hero, the King of Wakanda is seated on his Throne. The scene which is based on a famous photograph of Huey Newton, one of the Founding Member of the Black Panther Party, is a homage not only to Huey Newton himself, but the entire Black Panther Resistance movement.

It is a reference to actual History within what is essentially a fictional narrative. Nevertheless, in making this reference, we are reminded of the real Black Panther Party, and ultimately, the reality of Black, African-American and broader class struggle that the Black Panther Party represented.

In recognising this struggle, we are similarly confounded by its virtual disappearance, only to discover that this disappearance was effectively planned and executed at the highest levels of American Government via Counter-Intelligence Programmes such as the now infamous COINTELPRO.

COINTELPRO: STATE REPRESSION OF PROTEST MOVEMENTS

COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations. FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive, including anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists of the Civil Rights Movement or Black Power movement (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party) and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.

The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971.

Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized". Some of the Black Panthers affected included Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway.

On March 24, 1971, The Washington Post ran a cover story on the vast program initiated by the FBI in 1956 to neutralize suspicious persons and organizations. Although initially formed to target the Communist Party U.S.A., it was quickly expanded to include a wide range of groups considered “subversive.”

No segment had been as central to COINTELPRO operations as civil rights activists. A wider scope of the FBI’s actions, however, was not known until Congressional hearings five years later. What came to light was exceptionally chilling—seeped in its own racism, without any checks or balances, the FBI devoted more resources to harming the Civil Rights movement than any other task in its purview.

J Edgar Hoover: FBI Director

Every major advocate for black people in the country had been targeted by the Bureau. In fact, there was little differentiation between ideological lines and black leadership. In a meeting with Lyndon B. Johnson, Hoover said in reference to black nationalist Malcolm X and integrationist King, “we wouldn’t have any problem if we could get those two guys fighting, if we could get them to kill one another off…”

LEGACY: FROM COINTELPRO TO NYPD'S HIP HOP SQUAD (RAPCOINTELPRO)

COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day, and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.

Hoover’s behavior is often viewed as paranoid and even exceptional, but he operated with the full sanction of the wider state. During the civil rights movement, three U.S. presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon all supported Hoover’s efforts which were codified to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” targeted organizations. This would be achieved through various and sundry tools, including illegal activities.

COINTELPRO used informants, agent provocateurs, infiltrators, legal and illegal wiretaps, break-ins, false correspondence, and “bad-jacketing,” which was the act of making a legitimate member of a group appear to be a collaborator with the state. Psychological warfare included calling the parents of young civil rights activists to inform them that their children had been murdered or kidnapped.

For the past decade, the New York Police Department has had an established 'Hip Hop Squad' monitoring the activities and influence of the Hip Hop Industry. This seems to be an adapted version of COINTELPRO for the 21st Century dubbed 'RAPCOINTELPRO'.

Conclusion

The FBI ultimately succeeded in neutralising organisations like the Black Panther Party as charges were brought against the top membership who were then imprisoned for long periods. Mutulu Shakur and Geronimo Pratt are amongst the most known former Black Panther leaders handed long prison sentences.

Other members like Assata Shakur sought exile in Cuba, and those that remained, most notably Tupac's mother, faced a hostile system as 'Red-flagged' individuals with limited Job opportunities etc even when they were not convicted of any crimes.

Nevertheless, the Black Panther Party symbolised an important resurgence in class struggle within America post Civil Rights, and the fact that today we have a Film that has become a Pop-Culture phenomenon bears witness to the Black Panther Party's impact.

Check out the links below for more on COINTELPRO, the Black Panther Party and the NYPD's Hip Hop Taskforce.

Meanwhile, before checking out, please visit the Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships. You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the most Ancient Civilizations.

Also visit our new Pinterest Page @ https://za.pinterest.com/vhedzasculturelounge/ to view and download Photos we feature in articles that you may like...The Anunnaki Universe collage featuring images of the Ancient Anunnaki realms of Egypt, Sumeria, Babylon and Meso-America completes our current Pinterest collection.

Two months into the New Year, with the growth of the Community we revisit some past highlights before we continue with all new Content for the year.

Our 'Pac Legacy piece is a Fan favourite, and so we share an updated version including a link to our Review of the Biopic 'All Eyez On Me' and Vlad TV's recent Interview with 'Pac rape accuser Ayana Jackson, whose accusations saw 'Pac charged and convicted for sexual assualt back in '94.

Life Of An Outlaw

20 years on, one of the most tragic aspects of Tupac's death is how unnecessary it was. When you think about it, 'Pac was a multi-platinum musician and movie star who was on the Hollywood 'A-List' like any other famous Actor, Actress or Musician of his time. He even dated Madonna and modelled for Versace at one point, so he was definitely a member of the Glitterati.

Its therefore quite shocking that despite all his accomplishments and status, he died like a common criminal, courtesy of a revenge attack drive-by shooting by the LA based Gang, the Southside Crips. The drive-by itself was payback for a beatdown handed down to Orlando 'Baby Lane' Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips at the MGM Grand Hotel by a Death Row Records posse which included Tupac. In-fact 'Pac took part in and actually instigated the fight that led to the shooting that night.

The vicious Death Row attack on Orlando Anderson at the MGM Grand was trivial in its origin. The conflict emanated from an earlier incident at the Lakewood Mall in LA, when Orlando Anderson snatched a Death Row Records Chain from one of Suge Knight's Blood Gang affiliates. Suge's friend spotted Orlando Anderson in the MGM Hotel lobby that night and whispered into 'Pac's ear. In a few seconds Orlando Anderson was served a severe beatdown by the Death Row Records camp. The entire incident was captured on CCTV which led to Prison time for Suge Knight.

Within a few hours of the beating Tupac was shot on the Las Vegas strip when the BMW he was being driven in by Suge was sprayed with bullets. 'Pac took 3 bullets with the one that hit him in the lung eventually taking his life.

Officially, the murder remains unsolved but the streets have always known. Clues have been dropped, for instance on the song 'Start from Scratch' off The Game's debut album 'The Documentary', The Game drops a line confirming that Orlando Anderson shot 'Pac when he spits :'I would have told Pac not to stomp Orlando'.

Now with Orlando Anderson himself dying a few years after Tupac, it would seem the murder would never be solved.......Enter the Confession of Keffe D, a member of Orlando Anderson' Southside Crip set who was present in the car that fired the shots at Suge's BMW in which 'Pac was a passenger.

In the recorded confession, he confirms that Orlando Anderson did in-fact shoot Tupac. He takes us into the events of that night from the MGM Grand fight right through to the shooting.

Sadly, such a 'common' death did not seem fitting for someone as legendary and successful as Tupac, but I believe it was important in sending a clear message about the difference between the Streets and the Studio. In-fact, Mc Eiht one of Tupac's closest West Coast contemporaries did a Vlad TV Interview describing Tupac's Gang affiliation with Bloods due to his involvement with Deathrow Records as ill-advised and beyond his depth.

We've posted the link to Keffe D's Audio Confession, the MC Eiht & Ayanna Jackson Vlad TV Interviews in our YouTube Channel's 'Music, Sports & Culture' Playlist. Nick Broomfield's documentary 'Biggie & Tupac', and the raw CCTV Footage from the MGM Grand Casinon capturing the Death Row beatdown on Orlando Anderson that led to Tupac's murder a few hours later are also available on the same Playlist.

Ultimately, there will always be disagreement and controversy over 'Pac's death, and all we can do is go through the evidence and draw our own conclusions.

Ayana Jackson

Before checking out, visit the new Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships.

You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the furthest reaches of our Galaxy and the most Ancient Civilizations.

Conclusion

Despite the luke warm reception to the Tupac Biopic, it is nevertheless a necessary element in completing the legend. I personally enjoyed it as a dramatic portrayal of Tupac's life and I'm glad the Film was eventually made.

Ultimately Pac's Legend continues to grow, and we remain grateful for the time he spent with us on Earth...R.I.P. Souljah.

Two months into the New Year, with the growth of the Community we revisit some past highlights before we continue with all new Content for the year.

Our 'Pac Legacy piece is a Fan favourite, and so we share an updated version including a link to our Review of the Biopic 'All Eyez On Me' and Vlad TV's recent Interview with 'Pac rape accuser Ayana Jackson, whose accusations saw 'Pac charged and convicted for sexual assualt back in '94.

Life Of An Outlaw

20 years on, one of the most tragic aspects of Tupac's death is how unnecessary it was. When you think about it, 'Pac was a multi-platinum musician and movie star who was on the Hollywood 'A-List' like any other famous Actor, Actress or Musician of his time. He even dated Madonna and modelled for Versace at one point, so he was definitely a member of the Glitterati.

Its therefore quite shocking that despite all his accomplishments and status, he died like a common criminal, courtesy of a revenge attack drive-by shooting by the LA based Gang, the Southside Crips. The drive-by itself was payback for a beatdown handed down to Orlando 'Baby Lane' Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips at the MGM Grand Hotel by a Death Row Records posse which included Tupac. In-fact 'Pac took part in and actually instigated the fight that led to the shooting that night.
The vicious Death Row attack on Orlando Anderson at the MGM Grand was trivial in its origin. The conflict emanated from an earlier incident at the Lakewood Mall in LA, when Orlando Anderson snatched a Death Row Records Chain from one of Suge Knight's Blood Gang affiliates. Suge's friend spotted Orlando Anderson in the MGM Hotel lobby that night and whispered into 'Pac's ear. In a few seconds Orlando Anderson was served a severe beatdown by the Death Row Records camp. The entire incident was captured on CCTV which led to Prison time for Suge Knight.
Within a few hours of the beating Tupac was shot on the Las Vegas strip when the BMW he was being driven in by Suge was sprayed with bullets. 'Pac took 3 bullets with the one that hit him in the lung eventually taking his life.
Officially, the murder remains unsolved but the streets have always known. Clues have been dropped, for instance on the song 'Start from Scratch' off The Game's debut album 'The Documentary', The Game drops a line confirming that Orlando Anderson shot 'Pac when he spits :'I would have told Pac not to stomp Orlando'.

Now with Orlando Anderson himself dying a few years after Tupac, it would seem the murder would never be solved.......Enter the Confession of Keffe D, a member of Orlando Anderson' Southside Crip set who was present in the car that fired the shots at Suge's BMW in which 'Pac was a passenger.

In the recorded confession, he confirms that Orlando Anderson did in-fact shoot Tupac. He takes us into the events of that night from the MGM Grand fight right through to the shooting.
Sadly, such a 'common' death did not seem fitting for someone as legendary and successful as Tupac, but I believe it was important in sending a clear message about the difference between the Streets and the Studio. In-fact, Mc Eiht one of Tupac's closest West Coast contemporaries did a Vlad TV Interview describing Tupac's Gang affiliation with Bloods due to his involvement with Deathrow Records as ill-advised and beyond his depth.

We've posted the link to Keffe D's Audio Confession, the MC Eiht & Ayanna Jackson Vlad TV Interviews in our YouTube Channel's 'Music, Sports & Culture' Playlist. Nick Broomfield's documentary 'Biggie & Tupac', and the raw CCTV Footage from the MGM Grand Casinon capturing the Death Row beatdown on Orlando Anderson that led to Tupac's murder a few hours later are also available on the same Playlist.

Ultimately, there will always be disagreement and controversy over 'Pac's death, and all we can do is go through the evidence and draw our own conclusions.

Ayana Jackson

Before checking out, visit the new Timbuktu Portal Page with links to Jobs, Start-Up opportunities, Scholarships and Fellowships.

You can also immerse yourself in our Library of E-Books and Metaphysical knowledge which will take you into the deepest realms of knowledge from the furthest reaches of our Galaxy and the most Ancient Civilizations.

Conclusion

Despite the luke warm reception to the Tupac Biopic, it is nevertheless a necessary element in completing the legend. I personally enjoyed it as a dramatic portrayal of Tupac's life and I'm glad the Film was eventually made.

Ultimately Pac's Legend continues to grow, and we remain grateful for the time he spent with us on Earth...R.I.P. Souljah.